Posted
by
Soulskill
on Saturday May 30, 2009 @12:08AM
from the i-can-only-show-you-the-door dept.

Yesterday, Sony Online Entertainment representative Daniel Myers announced that The Matrix Online will be shut down on July 31st. The game launched in 2005 after several delays and false starts, and shortly thereafter SOE bought the rights to operate the game from developer Monolith. Now, four years later, the game will join the ranks of closed MMOs. In a forum post, Myers said, "The team will also be whipping up an end-of-the-world event. It won't be quite the same as having over 100 developers in the game as Agents like when we ended beta, but we have 4 years of tricks up our sleeve. It'll be a chance to revisit all the things that make MxO the memorable experience it is. And how could we pull the plug without crushing everyone's RSI just one more time?"

I have to admint that during the beta it was a good back and forth with the developers, but 2005 was just way to late. Maybe a year or two after the first movie, but by 2005 the steam has gone out. The end of the beta rocked, but after about a month or two, it just felt like SWG.

I mean they killed Morpheus! That didn't even bring in the numbers. Only reason I am going to log in is to see the ending.

You don't want to play a game in OpenSim. You can't even reasonably navigate structures which have reasonable-scale-doorways, everything has to be built over-sized if you want people to be able to walk through it. OpenSim is interesting and amazing but it's a shame they can't get right what works in every first person shooter every conceived.

On the contrary, hearing about something doesn't mean it's any good, either.

The contrary would be: "Everyone's heard about WoW precisely because it's so bad."

I played it for a few months, and liked it for the most part. Actually, it's the first computer game I've ever spent money on. Then I got to the raid-scheduling part, and realized my life is worth more than that.

The Matrix Online was _painful_. The information about what widgets were needed in what order to develop what new devices and abilities was far, far too complex and far, far too painful. You had to play it for at least six months, with a a very detailed notebook on hand, to work out enough detail to begin to survive Player versus Player with the people who refused to sleep and exchanged all their information offline or bought guides.

I agree, I played WoW for years and raided for the last 2. Bliz has a good product, but the end game content has become time consuming to the point you're playing 20-40 hours a week just to do any of it, if you do not meet those schedules the guilds will ultimately bench or boot you for someone else who can meet the schedules required to master the complexity and beat these bosses.

Under 50? No small number - it's part generational gap, and partly because most of the older people I know are too busy for it. That said, Niris has a point - WoW is colorful, popular, and fun, just like McDonald's.

Having heard of WoW is very different from actually having time to play it, it seems like it's been featured on several fictional shows, been parodied, and I think I read that some regular talk shows covered it.

It is like McD, but I'd give it another angle. It's one of those "least common denominator" things.

You have a few friends that you played MMOs with and you're looking for a new one. Which one will it be? One will pull towards EvE, but it's too tedious and abstract for some. One will pull towards AoC but some will shy away from heavy PvP content. In the end, they'll end up in WoW. It's not really what anyone wanted, but it's what they can agree on.

sounds like you have a very limited pool of easily folding friends. while my friends may not agree on what they do want, none of us want McD, better to skip a meal than ingest a heart attack. same goes for WoW... i'll play no MMO before choosing to play that mind melting fecies... Hulu only claims to melt your brain because its clever advertizing, WoW really does, Blizzard reall _are_ aliens taking over the earth

In general, what kills most MMOs is releasing too soon. If they release too early and ruin their first impressions with people, there is really no way for them recover. They need subscribers since box sales can only do so much. This is also the key reason why you're seeing fewer MMOs and more delays these days.

You have no idea how pissed off the MxO community has ALWAYS been regarding SOE's refusal to market and adequately support this game. Most players now posting on the official SOE board are refusing to ever spend money on another Sony product, holding them directly accountable for the game's failure.

The game itself is actually quite an achievement. The environment is vast and magnificent even at mid-range video settings, the character models are the best human MMO avatars I've ever seen including lifelike an

One of the few MMOs where basically everyone was looking for bugs.. cause if you were in the matrix, that's what you'd be doing too:)

I think the most fun I ever had was when our little clan would stand around in the park and run into an area that we weren't allowed in... an agent would show up and we'd all kick the shit out of him, not that we had a chance of defeating him, and then run back into the park.. where he wouldn't follow us. Basically bear baiting.:)

There's no grind in guild wars. It's against their philosophy. In fact, when I played, my dude was maxed out way before I ran out of quests. The game has a few problems, but the grind isn't one of them.

As of the latest WoW expansion, the grind is pretty much gone. They massively sped up leveling through the original content and first expansions (1-70) and the new 70-80 content is well-paced and actually Fun to play.

In fact, the forums are now full of people whining that things are "too easy" and that content is being cleared too fast (by people other than them..lol)

Even if one argues that WOW went from being a million times too grindy to a thousand times too grindy, it still got better by a factor of a t

What bugs me about WoW is that questing actually is grinding. What's grinding? Well, basically doing the same shit over and over and over 'til you don't want to think about it anymore, and generally don't have to because it's mind numbing, no fun and repetitive to the extreme.

See any similarities with WoW quests? Bring me X of Y, kill X of Y, carry X to Y... From level 1 to level 80.

This is true - there isn't much grind in WoW, but it still exists. You have to do daily quests for instance to raise reputation or earn tokens to purchase items (like the argent tournament or dungeons/raid badges). The only difference is - games like Lineage 2 where it could actually take years to hit max level playing 24x7 - WoW it only takes weeks or months, but its still grind.

I was just posting about dailies in the wow forums too - I think these are really interesting.

Personally I have zero interest in repeating the same quest over and over every day. And I don't. You can equip tabards for most rep in LK and get it "incidentally" through going to dungeons/raids. It's also optional, as rep just gives gear that you can get through dungeons/raiding as well.

But there are some people who just seem to *love* repeating their dailies every day. I've got one friend who I see on every

What sucks is when you absolutely have to have the reputation because of guild requirements for raiding.

Aldor/Scryer for Shoulder Enchantment @ 70Hodir Reputation for Shoulder Enchantment @ 80At least with Hodir reputation you have the epic fight with the proto-drake daily, but beyond that the rest of the quests were boring, and if you don't have the gold to buy Relic's of Hodir, or the time to spend hunting for crystals to turn in for rep, you can spend a lot of time.

I had the pleasure to read an (alleged) early draft for the 2nd part, which was considerably different from the (not so allegedly) crappy movie. With a lot more philosophic challenges for Neo and delightful puns, and a Morpheus that's revealed as a basically overzealous fanatic who'd gladly make billions of people die (the "sleepers") to save the handful of people who are free outside the Matrix.

Go back to Shell Beach. Dark City was was good, but it wasn't all that. The Matrix was a great movie. It really summed up the Zeitgeist of the fin de siecle. It came at the end of an era when everyone was looking for meaning, and things were about to change drastically. If you didn't walk out of the theater after seeing The Matrix for the first time wanting to break shit, completely pumped to see it again about 10 or 15 more times, there's something wrong with you. It's easy to hate on it in retrospect beca

I was thought they got too preachy in the second and third and missed a great opportunity for a killer twist to end it. I always thought after Cypher tried to make the deal with Agent Smith to get back to the Matrix that it would have been a damned cool twist if in the third one he went to the machine city and found out that...there simply was NO Zion. Nobody had ever actually left the Matrix at all. That Zion was simply a sub program for those that refused to accept the "reality" of the Matrix proper and that "Zion" was wiped out every so often to keep those who refused to believe from "infecting' those that did and throwing the whole thing out of whack.

They would then show him the 'real" world, that thanks to the war was uninhabitable by all life and then be given the choice: either allow a good portion of "Zion" to be wiped out so they will quit screwing up the Matrix, try to get those in Zion to accept that they will NEVER get out, as there is no where to actually go that they could survive and thanks to their doubts they will be forced to live out their days in "Zion", or allow those in Zion to keep screwing with the Matrix causing the eventual collapse of the Matrix and forcing everyone to live in the crappier Zion program.

That would have been a better ending than all the messiah junk they piled on in the second and third. Pretty much the only thing that kept me from falling asleep during the second and third was Smith. Smith for me was the only thing worth watching in the second and third, as he seemed to me the only one that just didn't seem to be a sheep going along with whatever the Oracle said.

Which is why I am frankly surprised that the MxO lasted as long as it did. When you base a game on a franchise that 2/3rds of the movies feel like "Spaceballs 33 1/3rd: The search for more money" I just didn't see how they would be able to build up a big enough fan base to keep it going. The characters and 2/3rds of the movies just weren't that interesting IMHO.

I always thought after Cypher tried to make the deal with Agent Smith to get back to the Matrix that it would have been a damned cool twist if in the third one he went to the machine city and found out that...there simply was NO Zion.

Shit, that's what I thought I saw on-screen when Neo zapped the squiddies out there in the "real world." I thought "Holy shit, he never actually left the matrix!"

The Matrix really should never have had sequels. There simply wasn't any more story that needed telling. But if they had to make a sequel, that's the angle they should have gone with. The only thing that could have possibly been more entertaining would be for them to escape into the real real world and find out that the blackened skies and body far

If the world would have been nice, then they could have just stuck the meatbags on a little island away from everything, like that island with the rhesus monkeys.

No, it would have been a better story with a LOT more ethical conflict if when he got to the machine city not only did he find out there was NO Zion, but that the machines had kept the true history of the war. There he would find out that the AI was basically treated as a slave race, forced to work in dangerous jobs, to be sexual servants,etc and w

The only thing that could have possibly been more entertaining would be for them to escape into the real real world and find out that the blackened skies and body farms was still part of the matrix and that the real world was actually quite nice and pleasant.

Heck, you could even make a whole TV series this way, each episode having the main character popping out into a "real"-er world!

You gotta hand it to them and some other MMOGs for planning epic endings. Sometimes the game does get kinda boring over time but people keep playing anyway so to just have a boring end date with nothing happening is crap. You gotta at least do SOMETHING. So that's cool that they're not just going all corporate on everyone and setting a date then enforcing it heartlessly without a big ending. Ever since some people started playing the game, they've been fantasizing about some epic event that they knew wou

Actually in my opinion, many of these MMOGs could have epic endings as part of the game. Then you restart it again (or not if you have the next version ready).

I used to play an online webgame where the ending was part of the game AND inevitable. Players could also do stuff to cause the game to end early - so there would be people who'd choose to try to end the game early, and others who would try to stop them.

While some people might not like the idea of having to regrind to build their chars up again, they could just reduce the amount of grind involved in getting the chars up.

Because it doesn't matter that the players get to heroic levels fast, you need them at heroic levels for the ending. And after the ending they start again from scratch.

I figure the biggest problem is almost everyone might be online for the ending and that'll crash the servers:).

That's a really interesting point. I wonder how many MMO developers have ever thought about ending their game gracefully. A storyline you could whip out once subscriptions fell to a certain level.

Well, A Tale in the Desert [slashdot.org] has this. They end the game and start another version after a certain period. That game is the exception to a lot of rules, though. If it wasn't so mismanaged it'd be a close second to WoW.

Tabula Rasa did the same thing. It's a shame that you'll never see these kinds of events until a game has nearly perished, but I do also agree that it's fun to be a part of that story. It makes you feel like you actually changed the game within itself, and really help decide what route the final epilogue will take.

WoW's 3.0 patch had a fantastic world event. Ok, the random citadels spawning mobs in the most desolate areas was lame but the zombies and the plague made it the most memorable couple of days in the game.

Sigh... I know they said that's not the reason (well, general outcry anyway) but yeah, the way they ended it was shamefully weak. Just... bam! Everything is fine again. This after steadily increasing populations of zombies throughout the week.

Yeah, it was griefer heaven (oh, the fun in chasing down guildies or infected quest hub areas, horde and alliance alike) but if you WEREN'T trying to get infected, it certainly gave the feeling of the end of civilization. All those Shattered Sun NPCs in Shatt made f

Not a good idea though. Remember that the ultimate goal of any commercial game is to make lots of money. They cost a lot to develop, you want a big return. Well, you get that if you get a lot of subscribers who stay on a long time. So you don't want to end a game when there's still lots of people playing.

Also you'll likely piss off a lot of people. While there are plenty of people who play a game for a time, get bored, and move on to something new, there are plenty who don't. There are people who really com

It strikes me that an online RPG might begin with a book: a three or four year story arc that has a clear beginning, a middle and an end.

It would be a particularly rewarding experience for those who came in and early and stayed the course.

But you could enter and exit at any point with some sense of achievement - and a unique experience of the game.

Part of the problem is epeen stroking. People want to have something to show for their time in the game, more levels and greater loot, etc.

I know I'm personally sick of mmorpg's because of the content recycling. I play a stand-alone game, there's 20 hours worth of material and then I'm done. I play an mmorpg, the devs only have the budget for 20 hours worth of material so it ends up getting recycled to make four the thousands of hours of lifesucking gameplay. A mechanic that was fun the first time gets old

That's really a shame...Well just like the other MMO that SOE got it hands on, the marvelous jewel that was tarnished by the grimy hands of SOE, you guys know what I'm talking about SWG! I swear it's like SOE had to go ahead and destroy everything that has the potential to be awesome or that was awesome. SWG was the greatest MMO I had ever played and they came along and ruined it!

now "The Matrix" has to suffer because of their evil! I wish I was a billionaire so I could use my money for the greater good, an

Where Morpheus makes Neo read the matrix mailing list archives instead of giving him the pill.

And instead of the climactic battle with Agent Smith, watch as Neo instead goes to the Matrix bugzilla and files a dupe bug report of an Agent attempting to kill him that's been open since the first alpha.

In the exciting conclusion, the bug is patched but Neo doesn't have the right version of the new sound library they threw in with the bugfix release.

Will he track down the new library version, compile and install the new dependencies that aren't in his package manager, install the library, and compile the new Matrix in time?!

Why would Sony make an open source MMO game? Someone could just take the code, host it on their own server, and now all the people they are expecting to pay $15 a month are now flocking to the free server instead.

Yeah, it's good for the players because their gameplay can't be cut off by the whims of a single company, but running the server, let alone developing the game (which is more important for MMOs than other types of games), costs money that a virtual "tip jar" isn't gonna cover.

Unless they promised that the service would go on forever, there has been no breach of contract.

Everyone knows that businesses and products fail. You have to make the decision of whether to deal with a vendor based on past performance. I won't buy the average Ford vehicle because Ford makes stupid, unnecessary changes to a given motor every couple years, even if they're still using it, that defeat parts interchange. I have a Ford truck because it has an International motor, and I know I can get parts even if I take the truck to another country.

"Unless they promised that the service would go on forever, there has been no breach of contract."
Maybe, maybe not. Legislation often imposes requirements on contractual agreements. Allowing someone to sign up and then canning the service a couple of months later may well breach consumer legislation. Laws like this vary a lot by jurisdiction. IANAL.

Fun fact; the MMORPG was actually considered canon. So when the game ends, that, rather than the third movie, will be the actual end of the story.

The fact that, from what I read at least, it was so story driven in nature was probably what ensured that it only had a finite lifespan. If WoW's devs hadn't screwed the class dynamics to the degree they have since 3.0, that game could have conceivably lasted more or less forever on the basis of the pre-existing content, without any further developer interaction.

MxO, however, was different. It was apparently built around ongoing episodic/developer involvement, and comparitively speaking there apparently wasn't a lot of repetitive/static content at all. As a result, once the devs stopped doing the live stuff, the game itself would die.

The franchise has existed for ten years, and that is a better run than many get; I know the screenplay of the first movie more intimately than Muslims are supposed to know the Qu'ran. Although I've still got it on my hard drive, I also wouldn't have watched it more than probably three times in the last five years; I saw it literally close to 100 times within the first six months of its' release, and I've since got it out of my system.

I really liked the matrix online, at least during it's warner brothers run, that damned combat 'upgrade' and removing almost all the live events (and staff) just farking nurfed a great combat system and game into button mashing grind fest.
But it is sad to see, but I figured SOE agreed to keep MxO online for 3-4 years so they could get their hands onto the DC online license (and possibly other things, we'll never really know.)
It sad I have been proven correct, hence goes another different(read non-WoW) M

Reading this and a number of the comments, connected with the question posted to/. a few days ago about severe gaming addiction, I kind of wonder if, at some point, all MMOs need to die? Like a good television show, you get to a point where the show needs to be retired. It's lived it's life and been popular and made money. I think this is probably natural and needed. This gives the creators a great opportunity to move on to another MMO, or a different project entirely - flex their creative muscles in a different way.

Games made to be played on the Internet should be compatible with the whole Internet. The Matrix Online was Windows-only, like today is 1995. Ill-conceived projects die, not because they weren't Linux-compatible; because not being Linux- (or Mac-) compatible is, in year 2009, an evidence of ill-conceiveness.

Thats 2nd after they managed to kill a mega title like Star Wars Galaxies. And the ceo of its parent company still babbles shit about the internet and whatnot, instead of doing his f@cking job. if he spent a fraction of his time overseeing their divisions, instead of babbling sh@t to shape internet to make up for their gross incompetence, those two mega titles wouldnt go down the drain like this.

guy. do your f@cking job. leave internet, to, well, the internet. wisdom of the crowds is much bigger than your 2